None But Lucifer

Chapter XXI

HALE DID GET some kick out of Johnson's next letter. Everybody likes to be appreciated, and the letter started off with a string of good, mouth-filling compliments on Hale's splendid success, the speed with which he was grasping the essentials of Johnson's methods, et cetera. The letter went on:

Now that you have won your spurs, as one might say, in our somewhat unusual business, I have another task for you. You are no doubt familiar with the work of Fermi and Hahn in the disintegration of the uranium atom. In the ordinary type of atomic disintegration, by which it has been possible to transmute elements for several years, the products are a new element of slightly lower atomic weight, and a few hydrogen and helium ions. The energy released, while large in terms of electron-volts, is much too small to keep the reaction going by itself; it is, therefore, necessary to continue to supply the target with a much greater amount of power from outside than can ever be gotten back in the form of atomic energy.

However, Fermi and Hahn discovered that uranium, under neutron bombardment, splits into barium, masurium, and several other elements such as iodine and caesium, with the release of enormous atomic energy of the order of 200,000,000 electron-volts. This discovery has aroused the hope that a self-sustaining, controllable atomic-disintegration reaction may be worked out at last.

I need hardly remind you of the effect of such a discovery on the technique of war. If the energy of ten pounds of uranium oxide could be released all at once, it could easily wipe a large city off the face of the globe. When the significance of these impending discoveries seeps down to the level of the average man in all countries, he will be made more apprehensive and unhappy than ever by the knowledge that, if a hostile government effects an atomic explosion anywhere in his neighborhood, he will have virtually no chance of escape. This will be much worse than the present threat of an air raid, which, while it can do great damage and kill thousands of people, cannot destroy more than a small fraction of a modern metropolis at one time, simply because of quantitative considerations.

As I say, the general impression among informed persons is that the discovery of such an atomic reaction is not far off. It is in fact nearer than they think. I have been observing the work of a Professor A. G. Dixon of Edinburgh, Scotland, and he appears to have the solution, though it has not yet been published, and will not be soon. I have had his figures checked by the most competent mathematicians of Europe, and they agree as to their correctness.

Professor Dixon has discovered that controllable atomic power cannot be obtained from uranium or any of its compounds — the reaction dies out too quickly to be self-sustaining. But it can be obtained from thorium, which is another heavy radioactive element.

In line with my policies, it is obviously undesirable that these facts become known immediately, as that would settle the question one way or the other. While it is still unsettled, we can keep the world's governments in a constant state of fear regarding the possible effects of atomic energy, and none of them will dare take any overt action in the absence of precise knowledge of the effects of this scientific advance.

We must, therefore, divert the attention of the world's physicists from thorium and keep it concentrated on uranium, with which so many of them have been working since the Fermi-Hahn discovery. When they have finally discovered that they are up a blind alley, we can afford to let the truth become known.

I shall, therefore, take steps to prevent the publication of Dixon's work, and to divert this scientist from his present line of research. You will do what you can to renew the interest of American physicists in uranium. It has been flagging lately, since Columbia University's investment in a cubic foot of uranium oxide for research produced much interesting data but nothing tangible in the way of controlled, self-sustaining atomic power. To save you time, I might mention that the country's outstanding uranium enthusiast is Dr. L.R. Kammeyer, the head of the Physics Department at the Southwestern Institute of Technology.

THIS TIME Hale didn't sit around and mope. He knew next to nothing about atomic physics, but he plunged into the subject with as much energy as could be expected of a man of purely nontechnical background. In the course of his reading he learned a little about science and a good deal about scientists. Kammeyer was a dogmatic enthusiast; his institute was looking for a new endowment for a physics laboratory.

Hale reached into the Southwestern Tech envelope in the files and came up with a bunch of papers. One fell out and spun to the floor, as if inviting his attention. He picked it up; it was several sheets clipped together. Inside the blank cover page was a sheet of diagrams and four pages of small type, headed "United States Patent Office." Below this phrase, in bold-face type, he read:

1,995,001 VACUUM TUBE

Willis N. Apostle, Los Angeles, Calif., assignor to

Southwestern Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, Calif.

Application May 17, 1933,

Serial No. 671,497 12 Claims (Cl. 41-126)

Hale had never before seen a United States patent copy, but the document proclaimed its nature clearly enough. He got hold of Janos, the patent expert of Johnson and Hale's legal staff. This worthy read the document through and whistled.

"Say," he said, "that's funny. This first claim dominates every frequency-modulated radio receiving set on the market, and I never heard of the patent before, though I know the art pretty well. I don't think the institute has been getting any royalties from the radio manufacturers, though I can find out. If they haven't, it probably means that this patent was taken out back before people took frequency-modulation very seriously. So the institute found no market for their rights, and forgot about the thing. But now that all the broadcasters have switched over to frequency modulation ... jeepers, think of all the infringements there have been in the last couple of years! The patent only has a couple of more years to run, and we can't sue for infringements that took place over six years ago, on account of the statute of limitations. But we've still got the radio manufacturers by the short hair, if we want to call the institute's attention to their position, and if that first claim isn't anticipated by the prior art."

Hale frowned. "The radio companies are pretty tough customers, being hooked up with General Motors and people like that. Are you sure they couldn't string the litigation out indefinitely?"

"Not a chance. They can delay a little, of course, and that might be serious to somebody who didn't have the $10,000 that a normal infringement suit takes. But they can only stall for so long, and then we'll have them. Want me to go ahead with a preliminary investigation?"

"Yeah, sure, go ahead, Mr. Janos. Let me know."

"Oh, of course, Mr. Hale. You don't have to tell me that."

THE FIRST really hot evening, Gloria enjoyed lolling in a lawn chair on the terrace, and Eugene Banner relaxed completely. But Hale's tortured mind kept turning to the Burkes and why they weren't happy. After all, he asked himself, what did they have before? A monotonous routine: up at five, sweep, scrub, shovel coal, make beds, argue rent out of people as poor as themselves, dispossess tenants with no place to go, make all the repairs in the house — all day and half the night, seven days a week, for just enough to keep them from going hungry.

Did they like that? Impossible! Then what was it? Well, no friends, discomfort in their elegant apartment; and you know how snobbish the well-to-do are: they haven't the easy friendliness of the poor, nor the self-confidence of the very rich, who can afford to make all kinds of friends.

Damn it, was that really the answer? If it was, how about all the people who make small fortunes? There were always plenty of them, rising from nothing. They managed to get by.

"Mighty nice up here," said Banner. "You can almost forget the trouble down below."

"What trouble?" asked Hale inattentively.

"Shaky market, factories closing, unemployment —"

"Oh, that," said Hale gloomily.

Banner sat up. "`Oh, that'? What the hell have you got to worry about that's bigger than the mess this country's in? Where do you come off, saying, `Oh, that'?"

Hale didn't hear him. He thought: maybe it was his fault the Burkes were unhappy; the result of an error like that with his own spell. No, that couldn't be. He had told Johnson he had wanted the Burkes made happy, and Johnson had managed the whole thing.

Banner was shaking his arm. "What the devil's the matter with you, son? You're not the same shrewd, obstinate guy who busted into my office and said he wanted to marry my daughter. Come on, speak up!"

"I don't know what's the matter with him, daddy," Gloria complained. "Only this morning he was so full of life —"

"I'm all right," grumbled Hale. "Just some business worries." He thought, and went on cautiously: "When I got that partnership with Johnson, I bit off a little more than I expected."

It was partly true. The Southwestern Tech deal had gone off with the greatest of ease; the radio manufacturers had given in to the threat of an infringement suit without a struggle. The institute now had enough money to keep its uranium research program going for years. But Hale found his enjoyment of this new triumph somewhat tepid. In an effort to take his mind off the Burkes, he had been thinking about his plan for keeping Bispham and his newspapers afloat. He had found the man to locate and rope his sucker: a Prince Igor Vershinin, who was a customers' man-female customers — for Titus, Farnsworth and Quinn, and who had assured Hale that nothing would be easier, for, of course, an appropriate consideration.

Banner resumed his seat. "That's it, is it? Can't say I blame you, with things the way they are. Say, you're usually pretty well posted. What do you think'll be the outcome?"

"Of what?"

"I mean, which way'll the country jump?"

"How should I know?"

"That's what everybody says. You know, Bill, it's enough to scare anyone out of reaching into his pocket. Isolation's all right — you can make real money at it, selling to both sides — but you got to depend on staying neutral. Get what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"Suppose you're an exporter. Until you know whom you can collect from, you're not going to sell to either side and take a chance of bad debts or embargoes. Or suppose you make automobiles. In case of war your plant'll be converted into an airplane factory, maybe. But if the country stays isolationist, you can go on making cars without changing all your equipment. Like this, though, you don't dare make either cars or airplanes, for fear of being stuck with a fortune in half-processed materials.

"Look here, Bill, I'm not a stubborn guy. I can see both sides. Either isolation or intervention would be a good thing, if we'd only decide on it." His voice rose to an agitated howl. "But for Pete's sake, let's make up our minds! This waiting around's what's putting capital in a panic, throwing people out of work, torturing the whole country!"

Hale squirmed uneasily. "Is it really making you so unhappy?"

"You bet it is! Advertising increases when sales drop. I haven't done so well since '32. But so help me, Bill, I'd cut my business to half of my lowest year if it'd mean getting rid of this ... this suspense!"

Hale thought, Johnson would have assumed a mournful air of sympathy, but gloated inside. Why shouldn't he, Hale, gloat? But the knowledge of his success in making the hemisphere miserable merely depressed him and intensified his unreasonable sense of failure.

He stood up and clenched his fists for a moment. Then he sagged again. Whom was he defying? He was absolute ruler of half the world, accountable to nobody.

"Yeah, you're right," said Banner. "I'm tired, too. I'll run along and let you kids get to sleep."

Hale felt a warm, soft hand steal into his. He stood it as long as he could, then disengaged it as gently as his disgust would allow. Couldn't Gloria, the damned little fool, see his agitation?

HALE THREW the newspapers on the floor, and punched the pillows behind him so he could sit up.

"Aren't you going to sleep, Billie-willie?" Gloria asked plaintively. He ignored her. Panic, fear, anxiety — why didn't the papers have sense to shut up?

"Billie-willie, can't you do your thinking in the morning?"

"Please be quiet and go to sleep," he said tensely.

She blinked a tear out of her eye. "You don't love me any more!"

"I do." He heaved over on his side, with his back to her. This time he wasn't going to be wheedled out of thinking. Listening to her suppressed sobs couldn't possibly add to his unhappiness.

His unhappiness? He had tricked Lucifer into making him a partner for the express purpose of making himself happy. He had appropriated everything he thought necessary to that end. Then why should he be wretched?

And why should the Burkes be unhappy with all the means of avoiding that state?

Was anybody happy? His father-in-law wasn't, despite his huge success in the advertising business. His new tool, Vershinin, wasn't, despite a good job with Hale's stockbrokers and the prospect of a fat commission when he had nailed Hale's picture-buying sucker. The Russian ‚migr‚ was a likable enough chap, despite a broad streak of woolly mysticism. But his associates regarded him as a sort of glorified gigolo. Hale had guessed that Vershinin hotly resented this, but could do nothing about it; he could no more shed his accent and his manner than he could shed his skin.

If he could, with a little thought and guidance, make hundreds of millions unhappy, why couldn't he give happiness to a few?

The botching of the spell on himself and Gloria had been his fault. Had it? He hadn't known he was casting a spell until it was too late. Did that mean that Johnson had deliberately let him tangle himself in a degrading mess? Impossible! Johnson always lived up to his promises. But had Johnson promised him happiness? Hale thought back. He hadn't, actually; he had merely told Hale to get all the happiness possible.

But Johnson had understood the reason for giving the Burkes money. Why hadn't he warned Hale that they would be worse off than before?

Hale sat up. What was the last thing Johnson had said before he sailed? "Anything you do, no matter what it is, will increase the misery and torments of the people, because that is how Hell is constructed!"

Had Hale imagined that? He must have. There was no logic in it. Even Lucifer must understand that to appreciate unhappiness you must have something to compare it with. To cause unhappiness, you ought to be able to create joy, or at least contentment. Certainly he could effect misery, but that wasn't the real test of a ruler. Could he create happiness, also?

Well, he could have made Gloria and himself happy, if he'd been told. He put that thought out of his mind, for it raised the suspicion of treachery. He refused to think about the Burkes. After all, he couldn't base his argument on the lives of four insignificant people.

The big thing was his paralyzing the hemisphere. He had done it, but he hadn't seen the magnitude of the results: millions out of work; increase in the relief budget attacked by the economy lobby — and effectively, since they were now so powerful; hunger marches, riots, strikes, lockouts, freezing of credit. Out of all that torment and strife there should have been a little happiness. The isolationists and the economizers should have felt jubilant. But actually they were as frightened as the rest of the country.

If he and Johnson hadn't intervened, the government supporters, at least, would have been happy. Or would they? It seemed that people were unhappy no matter what you did. Then he had heard Johnson correctly? Like a sign shoved before his imprisoned eyes, a single point forced itself into his mind: the basic philosophy of Hell. The damned were in Hell because they deserved to be there, and if they belonged there their function was to suffer torment. But why didn't they know what their crimes were? And what were the crimes that deserved such frightful punishment?

He — Lucifer's partner — didn't know. But Johnson — Lucifer — would know. Lucifer would tell him.